She moved towards them, blade sliding free with a soft metallic sound. Serena wasn't carrying a blade. That was new.
Her scent hit him a heartbeat late, and it wasn't hers. Close. Almost perfect. But wrong, like a familiar melody played half a note off.
Then he noticed her features were slightly off too. Just slightly misaligned. Eyes a fraction too wide. The distance between her pupils was wrong by millimeters. The jawline was sharper than it should have been. The hair was white but the white was flat, missing the gold undertone that sunlight pulled out of the real thing.
She smiled. The smile was too wide.
That wasn't Serena.
Xeon: What gave it away? The murder in her eyes or the blade?
"Again," Hyran sighed.
Gold magic supernovaed from his palms, hitting the Serena copy in a brutal strike.
The figure was hurled back and twisted in midair. Stone and flesh rippled. The shape collapsed inward and reformed as Hyran.
